• Chair of Utah’s Emergency Management Administration Council responsible to coordinate emergency response training among hospitals, government and other health systems

• As a state senator, Membership on the Legislative Health Reform Task Force.

The Fruit Heights resident brings more than two-decades of public service experience to the new position.

He served one term on the Farmington City Council, from 1990-1994. He was then elected mayor, and served in that position until 2002. Next, he was elelcted to the Utah State Senate, representing District 22, and was Assistant Majority Whip in 2008 and 2009.

Bell was picked by Gov. Gary Herbert to fill the lieutenant governor’s role in 2009. Herbert held that spot previously but moved to the state’s top elected position when former Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. was tapped by Pres. Obama to fill the position of ambassador to China.

“All of us baby boomers have to have enough money to retire, enough resources in place in advance of that,” he told the Clipper in an exclusive interview the day of the announcement.

“I’m still serving some business debt and didn’t want to be in the position of a personal storm in two to three years,” Bell said in the interview.

As lieutenant governor, he received $143,000 in salary and benefits per year.

The UHA search committee looked at national data, benchmarking the CEO salaries of other hospital associations of similar size as well as previous UHA CEO salaries to determine a competitive salary range, said Jill Vicory of the association.

A 2013 state report recently released cited health care-related positions in all categories as among those relatively high paid. That’s due to high demand for health care, including growth in the Baby Boomer generation which is expected to swell the need for such positions.